This is the fourth in a series of visualizations on legal employment outcomes for the Class of 2016. Following posts on outcomes in Texas, New York, and Illinois, here is a visualization for legal employment outcomes of graduates of California law schools for the Class of 2016. (More about the methodology is available at the Texas post.)

Outcomes generally improved with some important caveats. Total graduates declined nearly 10% year over year, from 4403 in the Class of 2015 to 4081 in the Class of 2016. That resulted in marginal improvements in employment outcomes: 64.3% in unfunded full-time, long-term, bar passage-required and J.D.-advantage positions, up from 63.8%. But total jobs in these positions declined, from 2807 to 2624, likely attributable in part to challenging bar passage rates (and perhaps because of conditions relating to California's job market).

Law school-funded positions experienced a small resurgence, from 107 positions last year (2.4% of graduates) to 118 positions (2.9% of graduates). (Please recall from the methodology that the bar chart is sorted by full-weight positions, which excludes school-funded positions, while the table below that is sorted by total employment as USNWR prints, which includes school-funded positions.)